#173 Raid on America 2: Kees the Devil Sails
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is the second of three episodes about a daring Dutch raid on the West Indies and the English colonies of North America during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. The extended raid, led by Commander Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest of the Admiralty of the Dutch province of Zeeland and a privateer named Jacob Benckes, was a sideshow in that war, yet its consequences were far-reaching. Among other accomplishments, Evertsen, known to his fans as Kees the Devil, and Benckes, “subdued three English colonies, depopulated a fourth, captured or destroyed nearly 200 enemy vessels, inflicted a serious injury upon the Virginia tobacco trade, wiped out the English Newfoundland fisheries, and caused unending panic in the New England colonies.”
This episode covers the first phase of the “raid on America,” in which Evertsen’s squadron sails from Zeeland for the South Atlantic, aiming to capture the English East India fleet at St. Helena. Failing that, the squadron sailed for South America and the Indies, eventually meeting up with Benckes at Martinique. After capturing prizes and burning down St. Eustatius, the episode ends with Evertsen and Benckes headed toward the rich tobacco fleet then gathering in the Chesapeake.
X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2
Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans
Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)
Donald G. Shomette and Robert D. Haslach, Raid on America: The Dutch Naval Campaign of 1672-1674
Map of the land campaign against the United Provinces in the Third Anglo Dutch War:
Third Anglo-Dutch War (Wikipedia)
Cornelis Evertsen The Youngest (Wikipedia)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 173. |
| 0:11.6 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on January 12, 2025, in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:19.9 | We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning |
| 0:25.7 | without intentional presentism. |
| 0:29.4 | Right out of the shoot, I want to thank the hosts of the fifth column podcast, |
| 0:34.6 | Matt Welch, Michael Moynihan, and Camille Foster for endorsing this podcast on their |
| 0:39.6 | awesome show in the episode that dropped January 2nd, I think. So welcome new listeners. And if you're |
| 0:47.0 | not a fan of the fifth column, you're missing my favorite show. I'll put a link to the relevant |
| 0:52.6 | episode and the show notes on the website. |
| 0:56.1 | I'm writing the first part of this episode in New York, because I'm here for the annual |
| 1:00.9 | meeting of the American Historical Association. Rather than sitting at a packed hotel |
| 1:06.9 | ballroom to argue about a resolution to condemn Israel, I've repaired to the Casa de Monte |
| 1:13.6 | Cristo cigar lounge on 2nd Avenue between 53rd and 54th Street, maybe a quarter mile north of |
| 1:20.7 | the Klaus Witts Public House on the Wickquesskech Trail, which ran from New Amsterdam north for the length of Manhattan, |
| 1:30.6 | roughly along today's 2nd Avenue. |
| 1:33.7 | Of course, that was approximately 385 years ago. |
| 1:37.8 | Longstanding and attentive listeners will remember Svitz as the beloved innkeeper and traitor whose murder by a young man of the |
| 1:46.8 | Leni Lanapé nation in August 1641 provided the pretext for Keefe's War. That Kazas |
| 1:56.0 | bell-eye was flimsier than most, and that war was stupider than many. |
| 2:02.8 | That was 42 episodes ago, but only 31 years in podcast timeline time. |
| 2:09.2 | It's now 1672. |
| 2:11.7 | The third Anglo-Dutch war has begun, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jack Henneman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jack Henneman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.